Dartmouth Edges BC in PKs

Big Green Down Eagles to Advance to Third Round

Novemeber 27, 2008

HANOVER, N.H. --¬ After 110 scoreless minutes, the Dartmouth men’s soccer team, buoyed by a big save from Connecticut native Sean Milligan, outlasted Boston College, 4-2, in penalty kicks.

The win eliminates the Eagles (9-8-3) and sends No. 16 Dartmouth (11-5-2) to the third round of the NCAA Tournament against defending NCAA Champs Wake Forest for a 1:00 p.m. game this Sunday.

Dartmouth's Sean Milligan made seven saves for the shutout. (Dartmouth Athletics)

It was a sweet reward for the Big Green, who failed to advance on penalty kicks against Vermont last season, giving head coach Jeff Cook his first success in the NCAA Tournament.

Boston College went first in the shootout and its first shooter, senior Dan Lane, fooled Milligan but hit the far post. Then Milligan helped his own cause, by stepping up and hammering a shot to the high corer past his BC counterpart, Chris Brown. Each team made its next two kicks, with Shawn Chin and Stephen Hepburn scoring for BC and Andrew Olsen (Norwell, Mass.) and Craig Henderson scoring for Dartmouth.

Having already given the Big Green a 3-2 advantage with his goal, Milligan faced Boston's Mike Konicoff and made a huge save. It was all up to junior back Pumi Maqubela (Andover, Mass.) who sealed the deal for the Green, burying his kick.

Prior to the shootout, the game was contested largely in midfield, though Boston College held a 14-8 shot advantage. Brown made six saves for BC while Milligan was credited for seven saves for the clean sheet.

It took both teams some time to get going and Dartmouth's first real scoring chance came in the 34th minute after freshman Arthur Harris (Framingham, Mass.) drew a foul on the far right sideline. Olsen sent in a booming kick but Brown was able to get a hold of it in traffic and clear it out.

Just minutes later Olsen broke away from the pack and took Brown one-on-one. The keeper stopped the ball in a collision but fell to the side and the ball was left free in front of the goal but Olsen could not get to it before a BC defender cleared it.

Boston College nearly had a golden goal in the 70th minute when the speedy Edvin Worley made a run at the goal and leapt to catch a cross but was just late and his shot went high. Dartmouth countered with a goalmouth scramble in 76th minute, with two shots saved at point-blank range by Brown.

ADD TO YOUR SOCIAL BOOKMARKS: Blink Del.icio.us Digg
Furl Google Simpy Spurl Technorati Y! MyWeb